Thursday, 5 November 2015

The Rose Rent - Ellis Peters

The thirteenth Cadfael novel, The
Rose Rent, is a little bit more
than a detective story. Young widow Judith Perle, who rents property
to the abbey for the token price of a single rose delivered on the
same day once every year, goes missing a couple of days before this
rent is due, following the mysterious near-destruction of the rose
bush in question. As the sheriff and the abbey are well aware, failed
payment of this rent, would
legally result in the property defaulting back to Mistress Perle, and puts
suspicion on some of her would-be suitors would might aspire to own it themselves.

Ellis
Peters uses more of an open style of narration than usual in this novel, and we
see events from a diverse range of points of view. With an ingenuity
worthy of Agatha Christie, this is cleverly used to hide facts in
plain sight and to bring about a genuinely surprising ending.

The
main point of this novel, for me, wasn't simply solving the original
murder of a young monk found dead after defending the unlucky rose
bush. It was more an exploration of grief and love, seeing the young
widow begin to stop mourning her first husband and starting to move on
with her life, and we see a wide selection of suitors each with their
own agenda, all eager to marry into the prosperous business Judith
has inherited.

Overall
this novel felt more sophisticated as a plot than many of the
preceding ones, and had an emotional complexity that really
made it come alive.